Cybersecurity threats are a great cause for concern for organisations because they don’t just result in monetary losses, but also damage the reputation of a company. As technology continues to thrive, businesses are becoming more connected, meaning that a compromised network in one can affect multiple entities. For this reason, traditional security measures like firewalls don’t provide the same guarantees. The need to develop more robust security solutions that respond to modern threats has led to the conclusion that humans are the answer.

Human Behaviour and Security

Employees have been identified as one of the biggest vulnerabilities to network security. A survey by Kaspersky Lab stated that 46% of IT security incidents could be attributed to employees. Humans have certain habits that contribute immensly to the cyber risks that a company faces. A majority of employees does not even know if its enterprise has IT security policies or not. Others know that policies exist but don’t do their part in implementing them. Employees sometimes fail even at the most basic security protocols like installing software updates and rotating passwords. The lack of knowledge among employees makes them easy targets of cyber attacks.

Security Policies

Companies must never slack off in developing IT security policies and ensuring they are implemented across different departments. The implementation of security policies should start by educating employees on the threats they are exposed to when using the corporate network and how to guard against them. They must also understand their share of responsibility in ensuring that an enterprise is safe against cybercriminals. When developing a strategy, the IT team should create solutions that get the job done without making it hard for non-IT personnel to execute them.

Learning the way humans behave when using IT tools can help a lot when creating security policies. As technology evolves dramatically and IoT devices increasing the interaction between humans and machines, SMBs have a bigger responsibility to ensure that employees use platforms safely.